2014 Turkey Red Joe Kelly Autograph

I have spent a whole bunch of time working on the Topps base set during the last month that I have not really gotten into the two other 2014 Topps releases.  Since the base set dropped, Topps has also issued their Turkey Red and Tribute sets.  They are both pretty nice looking products, but I passed on opening any of these cards myself.  Instead I am picking up cards from these two sets from other collectors who busted open these boxes.  Yes, it's less fun.  However, it's also the right thing to do with both of these products. 

Tribute is the more obvious set to pass on in terms of opening a box.  Atlanta Sports Cards is currently selling boxes of the Tribute product at $240 per box with six hits.  Yes, there are some nice autographs in the product and some great looking relics.  However, I am not sure there are $240 worth.  Not that I expect to get my money out of every box, but I am not going to take a beating either.  Stroll through the autographs listed on Ebay and there are way way to many autographs and relics from this product under $10.  Tribute looks like a box you'd spend $200 plus on and could conceivably walk away with less than half it's value.

Turkey Red is not as bad.  It's a $20 box sold on Topps.com, but it has one autograph.  Again, there are lots of inexpensive autographs in the product.  With both the Tribute and Turkey Red products most of the Cardinals and Rays cards are fairly inexpensive.  The Tribute has a Yadier Molina autograph which has been selling for more than $50, but the rest of the autos and relics from those two teams are cheap and probably not worth the risk of busting some wax.  I think Heritage and Donruss will probably be my next two boxes.  In the meantime, here's my first Cardinals card from the Turkey Red set:

 

Kelly had several autographs in 2010, but has had few since.  Of all the Cardinals young pitchers, Kelly is probably the cheapest of the group.  This card cost me a shade under $10 shipped.  Yes, it's a sticker autograph, but I still like that Topps got a Cardinals player other than David Freese and Lance Lynn to sign something this year.  I suspect that Kelly will probably end up in the bullpen again as the long reliever, but would probably be most team's third starter.  Maybe one day his cards will creep up in value when he's not mopping up games.